This week's review of ad fraud and quality in the digital advertising space.

1. Ad fraud is 'biggest industry issue'

According to MediaPost, citing an Infectious Media study, “ad fraud is the biggest industry issue.” The article notes: “33% of marketers say they are troubled by ad fraud, with brand safety next (picked by 26%) followed by viewability (21%), transparency (17%) and geocompliance (3%).” Similarly, 44% of publishers say ad fraud is the biggest problem — more than double their next-biggest problem (transparency, at 18%).

2. 168 million to watch Connected TV in the US in 2017

According to eMarketer, “168.1 million people in the US will use an internet-connected TV this year, up 10.1% over 2016.” With consumer use growing, marketers will continue to spend more in the space. Recent eMarketer estimates say that programmatic TV spend will grow over 75% this year, despite the fact the space is still not fully understood by many in the industry.

3. Blockchain won't solve ad verficiation

In an op-ed on Advertising Age, Patrick Hopf, co-founder and president at SourceKnowledge, makes the case against blockchain solving the ad industry’s verification concerns. Hopf notes that blockchain’s technology is too slow. Blockchain's tech processes five transactions per second right now, versus the millions processed by ad exchanges. Hopf makes the case for using the IAB’s Ads.txt instead, but it should be noted that the initiative has been slow to take off.

4. Ad blocking continues as quality remains an issue

According to AdExchanger, the market for ad-blocking companies is heating up as fed-up consumers continue to seek options to improve the quality of their web browsing experience. This is all part of the larger industry-wide discussion around quality. Marketers need to understand what works and what doesn’t within the context of what consumers are comfortable with. Working with an ad verification and measurement company can help them achieve this goal.

5. AI coming to programmatic, but it's weak at preventing fraud

“Ad tech has AI fever,” wrote Digiday, before adding that “AI … products are weak at preventing ad fraud.” The article added, “Although the tech behind AI products might be advanced, the AI still looks for standard fraud patterns, which fraudsters can easily circumvent."

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